by C. M. Owens
There’s a knock before the door swings open like he’s been summoned by my thoughts. Rush’s eyes are on his phone as he runs a hand through his hair in frustration, which is at least one thing that hasn’t changed.
“Have fun with that,” Drex says to me with a cold smirk.
So far he’s told me everything, except for who this Eve chick really is to him and why he’s so affectionate toward her. Also, he’s left me in the dark about the brooding ex of mine, who is apparently about to seize custody.
Wordlessly, I stand and walk to the door, feeling like the intrusive interloper when Eve turns in Drex’s arms. I’ve never pictured my brother as the cuddle-when-sleeping type.
I feel like I don’t know him right now.
My gaze lands on the distracted Rush as he keeps his attention trained on his phone, and he steps aside when I get close. He makes me walk in front of him again, gesturing toward a door at the end.
I push through it, finding a plain, white room with a single bed pushed all the way against the wall. A few beer bottles are stacked along the edge of a nightstand, and a pile of clothes are in the corner next to my bags.
I eye the bags that were holding my small arsenal of weaponry, noting they’re flat and empty.
Damn.
“You can get changed for bed. I need to get some sleep,” he says without ever glancing up from his phone.
“I’m not sharing the bed with you,” I point out.
“You’ll do as you’re told. You’re not the untouchable princess anymore, Kara. You’re a ward of the clubhouse until Drex says otherwise,” he answers with too much nonchalance.
I study his profile as he runs another hand through his dark hair in frustration, blowing out a breath as he reads something on his phone.
Climbing into bed, I wiggle out of my jeans, forgoing changing into anything. He’s not going to touch me. Drex wouldn’t allow anything like that, regardless of how much he’s changed.
I strip out of my bra, pulling it out of the sleeve of my shirt, and toss it to his floor.
Rush glances over, and his eyes widen marginally on my underwear, before he lifts his gaze and cocks an eyebrow at me.
“I’m as untouchable as ever if my brother is the P and doesn’t want me dead,” I tell him with a smirk of my own.
He moves fast, and my reflexes have gotten too soft with my complacent lifestyle. He’s on me in the next instant, pinning my hands above my head, and my breath catches as he presses down on me, firmly settling himself between my legs.
Between the constant surge of adrenaline in a body that hasn’t felt adrenaline in years and the intoxicating way the man versus the boy stares down at me with full control...
I blame my fucked up head when I have to fight the urge to tilt my hips toward him.
How long have I gone without sex?
If I’m having to count the years, then it’s been too long.
He secures my wrists together with just one of his iron-clenched hands, holding me firmly in place as that smug little grin of his deepens and his eyes grow more cunning.
Damn, he’s a lot stronger than he looks.
My struggle is pathetic against him, and the weakness really pisses me off.
I blame the weekly baconator at the diner for my lack of extra physical prowess.
“Struggling only turns me on. You know I’m a sick fuck with control issues,” he murmurs as he bends over to my ear.
I go still, because I’m a naïve fool for letting my mind compare him to the boy he once was, when he’s clearly a different man altogether. I hope he hasn’t escalated from role play to—
My mind stops the inner ramble from dipping to dark when I hear a steady vibrating sound in the air.
“You stopped struggling, so I’ll take that as a no,” he says as he drags his lips from my chin to my ear, sending a full body-tremble throughout me.
What fresh hell have I landed in now?
I can’t transition from Mayberry back to Halo this fast.
I startle and hiss out a breath when I feel the tip of my vibrator tap the inside of my knee.
“Need me to handle you’re nightly ritual? Or do you want to skip it for now?” he asks.
He remembers my damage too well. Adrenaline and fear always turn me on.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
“Do I have a choice?” I ask a little bitterly.
The vibrations stop, and he lifts off me abruptly, shrugging a shoulder as he turns his back to me. I watch my vibrator get tossed into the air, landing on top of my bags. It takes me a minute to realize I can’t move my hands.
I curse as the adrenaline and arousal starts to fade and I finally feel the sensations of the cuffs surrounding my wrists. The asshole cuffed me to the bed, and he distracted me the entire time.
“Attack me with your legs, and I’ll cuff you at the ankles too,” he says like he’s enjoying himself, keeping his back to me as he bobs his head with the music that is steadily getting louder.
He sort of scares me with the little laugh he leaves behind as he walks out the door and locks me inside.
Definitely not the boy I remember.
I guess he decided against sleep.
Now that I’m cuffed and all alone in here, the adrenaline only spikes back up.
I eye my vibrator like a traitor for being so far away.
I hate that son of a bitch now that he’s a man. Mostly because I don’t have a clue who the hell he is.
Chapter 8
RUSH
Kara darts a look to Maya every thirty minutes or so, as Maya giggles very loudly at her very un-funny, slightly morbid jokes. And I mean morbid even by my standards.
“I think you make her worse instead of better,” I mutter under my breath to Axle at my side as I scratch the side of my temple with the barrel of my gun.
He stares at me like he’s unsure of what to say.
“What?” I snap, scratching behind my ear, since the nervous tension is ratcheting up and pissing me off with the numerous tics it provides.
“Maya’s not the only one getting worse,” he mutters with a roll of his eyes.
“I’m not getting worse. I’m just getting more comfortable being myself around all of you,” Maya dutifully informs me, eyes hitting mine in the rearview mirror as I use my gun to scratch my forehead next.
“Just curious...who are you again?” Kara asks uncertainly.
“The driver for the day,” Maya deadpans with a slightly worrisome smile as she stares ahead.
I see the reason for the smile when I spot the identity crisis from hell walking our way. Sarah/AJ has become some combination in between the sweet-and-innocent stripper persona and her previous robot-assassin persona.
She’s the most disturbingly terrifying woman I’ve ever encountered. And that says a lot.
I can’t read her worth a damn.
“Why’s the shit show here?” I ask Maya as she parks the car in the abandoned lot—that we’re not supposed to be in—and gets out. “Or don’t answer, since you’re now running the show,” I add while shooting a dry look toward Axle.
He just heaves out a breath and shrugs a shoulder in humble defeat.
“She has more power in the relationship than you, I’m assuming,” Kara says from the front with a single nod. “Which makes me appropriately anxious.”
“Be even nicer to the blonde,” I warn her as I get out.
I hear her murmuring, “What the fuck is going on around here?”
We skipped the mafia shit and kept all things Herrin-related in the meeting earlier today. Kara doesn’t need to be dragged into extracurricular club activity. We’ll deal with the mafia-that-swears-it’s-not-really-the-mafia shit storm later.
Kara’s been mostly quiet, observant, and pensive, and it’s hard as hell to read her too.
“Top of the mornin’ to ya, gov’nah,” Sarah/AJ says as she curtsies toward me, distracting me from Kara, as she keeps her distance and
stands off to the side. “You owe me a favor.”
Shiiiiiiiit.
Schooling my features, I give her a single eyebrow arch. “Cashing in so soon?”
“Afraid so. I need someone who shoots almost as well as I do, because I have a job and a goal. You read people better than I do. See if you can catch something I’m missing in my little interrogation, and cover my six from a safe locale during a raid I need to handle,” she says as if it’s not a big favor to ask.
“I even have your bike here,” she adds like it’s some sort of incentive.
She gestures over her shoulder to where my bike is most definitely sitting.
“Pretty please with two cherries on top,” she adds with that crazy-bitch grin that always gives me a full body shudder.
“Fine,” I bite out.
“We’ll keep an eye on Kara,” Axle tells me from behind.
I give a dismissive, I-don’t-give-a-fuck hand toss, because it’s not like that needed to be said. He knows she’s crafty and plotting her escape.
“Drex’s sister, I presume? Who’s worse? Me or her—”
“You,” I state with zero hesitation.
“Define your version of worse,” Sarah tells me as I straddle my bike and tug on my helmet.
“Unapologetically psychotic and claiming to simply be misunderstood, while never giving yourself a new name to represent the melding of your latest identity crisis,” I inform her as I rev the bike, glancing over my shoulder to see Kara staring at us with a frown.
“I’m still just Sarah. I’ve told you this,” the lunatic behind me groans while wrapping her arms around my waist.
I rev the bike again, cutting my eyes away from Kara’s.
“I’m going to stop asking you for favors,” I tell her as I drive across the desert, following the direction in which she points until tire hits pavement.
Then I give it hell, and the crazy bitch leans back like she has a death wish. Her hair better not get caught in anything. Snake will put a bullet between my eyes if anything happens to her on the back of my bike.
His crazy almost matches hers.
She sits up abruptly, pointing over my shoulder. “It’s just up here. Take a right, left, left, right, left—”
“Are you fucking serious right now?” I ask as I slow up and take the turn.
“It’s just up ahead,” she says with a smile in her tone.
I don’t ever find her funny.
We pull into a domestic-as-fuck house with wind chimes, flower beds, gnomes, frilly curtains, and five cats eating out of one bowl.
I don’t know my life anymore.
“Sarah...”
“Come on in. I’ll fix you some tea for the interrogation,” she says as she hops off and starts heading inside, wearing some sort of belly-dancing outfit I weirdly haven’t noticed until now.
“I’ll skip the fucking tea,” I tell her as she heads inside.
“Fine with me. Hurry up,” she says over her shoulder as I pull off my helmet and follow her in.
When I get inside, I pause, because it’s like she found a store for cat lovers and bought all the available inventory in stock.
Even the sofa has a covering with kitty paw prints designed on it. Cat chairs. Cat clocks. A tiger-holding-up-glass coffee table. There’s even a cat puppet hanging over the edge of the sofa arm.
“I take it you’re still not doing well with the break-up,” I call out, clearing my throat when I spot a cat-sized coffin next to her woodwork station.
Crazy. Bitch.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she says in an assuring tone. “Come down to the basement.”
My eyes hover on a cat basket full of yarn.
“Yeah. Sure. Follow the fucking femme fatale psychopath to the basement willingly. Why not?” I say under my breath as I shake my head and move through the small house to the door that’s open.
There’s barely any light creaking out at the bottom of the stairs, as Sarah’s giggle travels up like a creepy horror movie.
“Come on, Rush. I don’t have all day, and I feel stabby.”
“I question my life choices on days like this,” I mutter under my breath as I head down the stairs.
It’s like an old-school interrogation room fully equipped with the dim bulb dangling from a cord just above a man.
There’s a table in front of him, and his hands are strapped down by homemade clamps that bind at the wrists. His body is strapped to the chair, and there’s a gag in his mouth. The room is so dark that the beam of light only surrounds him and sheds very little glow into the rest of the room.
“It’s easier to interrogate people when they can answer the questions,” I point out as the guy sits stoically, eyes flat and dead like he has no reason to worry. “Also, maybe you should just tell him who you are, because he doesn’t seem to know.”
He gives me a bland, careless look, before moving his eyes back to the vacant spot in front of him. He’s not sweating this at all.
“Sarah, how important is this guy?” I ask warily, wondering where in the hell she even is. At his calm glance back at me, I add, “I’m not beating some high-level mafia dude to a pulp just for—”
A knife suddenly stabs through his hand, seeming to drop from the air above.
He and I both dart a look at it, since it’s stabbing into the metal table beneath it with the hilt buried all the way against the back of his hand.
He makes a strangled cry of pain, staring with wide eyes like he can’t believe that just happened.
Music starts playing...
The tune of I Feel Pretty plays as the TV beside me cuts on and scares the shit out of me. Little words start bouncing on the screen like someone’s getting ready for karaoke.
But...the words being sung from the rafters do not match up with the lyrics on the screen.
“I feel stabby. Oh so stabby. I feel stabby and bloodthirsty and delight! And I pity any girl who isn’t me tonight!” she sings with perfect pitch as she swings down from the rafters, hanging upside down with her knees holding her up.
We both look up as she grabs the cord holding the light, shuts her eyes, and sings into the lightbulb like it’s a microphone.
“I feel alarming. Oh so alarming. It’s disarming how alarming I feel! And so stabby that I hardly believe I’m real!”
His eyes dart to me with wide panic, but I’m too busy staring in horror.
Fucking. Crazy. Ass. Bitch.
Another knife stabs into his other hand, and I barely see her make the move to do it, even with her eyes closed. He makes another pained, muffled scream, like he’s working hard to hold back.
Meanwhile...the crazy bitch sways and continues singing into the lightbulb.
“See that stabby girl in the mirror there!” she shouts into the bulb...and then turns the light on the mirror that barely casts back a reflective glow.
He swallows thickly.
I take a step back.
“Who can that murderous girl be? Such a crazy look! Such a crazy head! Such a crazy smile! Such a crazy meeeeeee!”
She smiles that wild smile she’s trademarked as her eyes open and land on him. He looks way less calm now.
She stops singing long enough to miss some words as she reaches down to her hip and throws three more knives in quick succession.
I’m not sure where the third one lands, but the two that stab into his knees make him scream like a bitch. I finally spot the third one just a hair’s breadth shy of his crotch, and his eyes widen in more panic as his gaze drops to it.
He shakes in the chair, crying out when the knives stabbing into his hands tear against the flesh.
Sarah lifts the remote, rewinds the song a little, and resumes singing. Her knees straighten, and she turns a flip as she smoothly drops from the rafters, jarring the table hard enough to make him scream again as his hands drip with fresh blood.
“I feel angry and unrepentant. Feel like killing and avenging for joy! For I’m loved by a stabby, psychotic bo
oooooy!”
She flicks his cheek with the knife, and the gag drops as she sings in his face, idly dragging the blade of the knife across his lips as he trembles and sweats in appropriate fear.
This is why I don’t like the mafia. They produce these chicks like it’s a conveyor belt assembly line.
She starts belly-dancing to the instrumental part, even though it’s not exactly something she’s good at. It’s not exactly a hip-thrusting song, but she rolls with it.
We both just watch her as she starts singing again with her own parody of the song.
“I feel angry and unrepentant. Feel like killing and avenging for joy! For I’m loved by a stabby, psychotic booooooooooooooooooooyyyyyy!”
As soon as she lets the last note die off, she peers over her shoulder, that wild, crazed look in her eyes as she slowly starts smiling.
“AJ,” he whispers under his breath, his jaw moving a few times.
“You know the girl, so figure out the routine all on your own from here, and decide how quickly you get to die—”
“He has a shipment coming in today. A big one. I’ll give you every single detail if you let me walk out of here.”
She shrugs her shoulder and nods, and he starts spilling details like he’s a blubbering errand boy instead of an important figure inside an elite, criminal circuit.
I’d be embarrassed for him, but I’d probably spew like a bitch too.
She doesn’t exactly need my help, so I’m apparently just here for her to remind me why I stay on her good side.
Duly noted.
She idly nods as she flips on a brighter light, and he continues to spill out details as she pulls on a bulletproof vest and tosses me one as well.
My day was already busy before this shit.
He cries out when she starts yanking knives out of him, and she releases him completely. He’s wary as he works his way to his feet, wincing and hissing through the pain as he stumbles his way toward me.
He drops to the ground when the wounds in his knees get too painful for him to stand on anymore. Sarah starts packing her body with weapons, as he whimpers and looks over his shoulder, dragging himself toward the stairs now.
I step aside to let him crawl up them, and he never even glances at me. Quirking an eyebrow at his tattoo that definitely shows his high rank inside his crew, I idly wonder how much of Sarah’s reputation is myth versus fact.